The Athlete’s Village: Les Quinconces, Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine

Located along the Seine in Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine, The Athlete’s Village, Les Quinconces is a large-scale residential and urban regeneration project designed by uapS as part of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games legacy. Covering an area of 51,875 square meters, the development represents a forward-looking model for sustainable housing, social diversity, and adaptive urban infrastructure.

Conceived within the masterplan led by Dominique Perrault, Les Quinconces occupies Sector D of the Athletes’ Village and takes its name from its distinctive urban geometry. Thirteen pastel-toned residential buildings are arranged in a rhythmic sequence atop a shared infrastructural base, forming a coherent architectural ensemble while maintaining subtle variations in form, color, and detail.

From Olympic Infrastructure to Inclusive Urban Neighborhood

During the summer of 2024, Les Quinconces accommodated nearly 3,000 athletes. Following the Games, the project transitions into a permanent mixed-use neighborhood designed to support long-term social and economic vitality. The development includes 643 housing units distributed across multiple tenures: owner-occupied apartments, social housing, intermediate rentals, student residences, and homes adapted for people with disabilities. This diversity ensures an inclusive residential environment that reflects contemporary urban living needs.

At ground level, the infrastructural base plays a key civic role. It hosts public-facing programs such as the Social Sports Club, cultural facilities, and sports amenities, reinforcing the site’s openness and encouraging community engagement beyond the residential population.

Topography as an Architectural Driver

Les Quinconces is shaped by a significant 12-meter height difference between the Seine quays and Saint-Denis Street. Rather than flattening the site, the project embraces this topography through a robust base structure that absorbs level changes and creates a floating platform for the housing above. Spaces oriented toward the Seine are designed for metropolitan-scale uses, while those facing Saint-Denis Street support neighborhood shops and local services. This sectional strategy strengthens both urban continuity and functional clarity.

Low-Carbon Construction and Architectural Envelope

A key ambition of the project is construction decarbonization. To achieve this, the residential buildings feature prefabricated wood-framed facades assembled on site. Buildings up to six stories rely on timber structural systems, while taller volumes combine wood envelopes with low-carbon concrete frames. This hybrid approach balances sustainability goals with structural performance requirements.

The facade system is conceived as an independent architectural layer, introducing rhythmic horizontal overlaps that articulate the elevations while responding to prefabrication constraints. This strategy ensures both construction efficiency and visual coherence across the development.

Materiality, Color, and Circular Design

Material expression plays a central role in unifying the ensemble. Terracotta is used extensively across the wood-framed facades in flat, rounded, triangular, and glazed tile formats, complemented by mineral plasters. The resulting palette creates warmth and texture while subtly differentiating each building.

At the base, a 200-meter-long gabion wall filled with terracotta production waste lines Agnès Varda Street. This gesture embodies principles of circular construction and material reuse while echoing the chromatic identity of the upper volumes. The overall color strategy draws inspiration from Philip Guston’s painting Evidence, reinforcing the project’s artistic and cultural dimension.

A Contemporary Model for Post-Olympic Housing

With its integration of sustainable construction, social diversity, and adaptable urban programming, The Athlete’s Village, Les Quinconces stands as a benchmark for post-event transformation. By merging architectural consistency with variation, and infrastructure with public life, the project demonstrates how Olympic developments can evolve into resilient, inclusive neighborhoods that serve cities long after the closing ceremony.

Project Details Architects: uapS Lead Architect: Anne Mie Depuydt Landscape Architect: TN+ Structural Engineering: Groupe EGIS Environmental Engineering: Oasiis Technical Engineering: Berim Photographs: Filip Dujardin, Géraldine Millo Year: 2024

  All photographs are works of  Filip Dujardin, Géraldine Millo